Brain Twisting

A conversation between an 11 year old boy and his mother.
Mother: "A red shirt is red because it reflects that wavelength of white light. I always thought it was because it absorbed it. Neat."
Boy: "What would happen if reflections started dying? Would we see rainbows all over the place?"
Mother, slightly numb from her brain twisting and scrambling to remember what she learned about sight: "Since we don't really 'see' but have signals sent to our brain from molecules that are rearranged by the light that is reflected then I think we'd probably 'see' black or white like we do at night."
Boy: "We see black and white at night?"
Mother: "Yes, check it out when you go to bed tonight. We see black and white because the light isn't strong enough to reflect color, or rearrange those molecules, or something along those lines. Now stop making my brain twist would you it's making my head hurt."
I seriously love the way his brain functions. Mine? It hurts.